Hot

Of course, the past couple days have been quite nutsnasty. We've learned several things.

Record high temperatures suck. Well, I dunno if they're really record highs, but I do know they suck. We learnt this stunning fact after riding for a couple hours in the middle o the afternoon, and nearly melting. Headwinds, 99 degree temp, plenty o traffic: suck.

This is me good ol bike after riding ahead, getting overheated/starving, pulling behind a gas station to rest. The tree and the field were awesome, despite being 100 feet from the highway. I got hungry and thought, "hey! I'll grab a Snickers!" (seriously, for some reason those commercials got in my brain), and on the way out, I ran into the people I had left behind. Very lucky. I woulda been mighty confused waiting for them for an hour or two and not finding anybody. We're not really using cell phones since it's hard to keep em charged. Plus, mine is crappin out.
So we've started waking up around 5:30/6, roll at 7, break at 12, ride again at 4. It's fantastic. It feels like a day off because we have so much time to chill or explore.
The evening after my last post was the day we discovered the horrendous heat. The night before we had a nice little scare. We stayed in this fisherman's backyard. The weather called for heavy lightening, hail, and possible tornadoes. Scary. He ended up giving us a bunch of fish burgers and steamed crabs, and entertaining us in his shack up on the hill. We watched the weather channel as a huge red blob of crazy weather passed over and pounded on the tin roof. Turns out a tornado touched down a few miles away.

The picture above shows the next night, when we got even more good weather- threats of nasty storms again. Turns out we just got a wave of heavy rain and an awesome lightning show that lasted for a couple hours. I stood out and watched as the cloud-to-cloud stuff lit up the sky overhead. It was everywhere. I don't think I've ever seen such an amazing show; forget about fireworks. I called it a night when 4 bolts came a little close for comfort.

The couple at this house was generous enough to let us stay in their garage. In exchange, we took turns entertaining their speculations on the weather and giving us directions. The husband and his friend were quite drunk, and I think they spent around an hour (solid) talking about directions. It was fascinating. But seriously, it was interesting to hear about their careers, families, and dreams, both realized and lost.